Building muscle via expander

[justregularguy]

So I followed a different approach over the last 6 weeks or so. Less volume and I only trained when I was 100% recovered. I got stronger and felt strong but I barely grew visibly. I will up the volume again and see how my body responds. Which expander exercises do you guys usually do?

January 3, 2019



March 4, 2019

[Deleted]

There's some changes there so you're doing well man. Way to go. If you're going to amp up the volume, do what you can handle and keep it consistent. Your results will come when they're meant to. You have a great thing going. Kick ass bro.

[justregularguy]

Thanks for the motivating words! I was just surprised when I compared the pics. Yes I'll keep doing my thing but experiment more with different exercises in the future. As long as the numbers go up I must be doing something right. I think I will post a picture here every month so I have something to compare with.

[Michael]

Justregularguy, Good job! I like cycling my volume. I do periods of high volume and low volume. Fred Hutch mentioned this years ago and I've always liked it. I do some exercises with Bruce's cables sometimes for Back, Chest, Shoulders, and arms. I don't do many chest expander exercises. I can't remember the name of one chest expander exercise I like. You hold Your arms straight out in front chest height. Then You pull the bands where Your arms are like an airplane, shoulder height. Hits the back of the shoulders.

[Deuce Gunner]

Mar 4, 2019 23:02:51 GMT Michael said:

Justregularguy, Good job! I like cycling my volume. I do periods of high volume and low volume. Fred Hutch mentioned this years ago and I've always liked it. I do some exercises with Bruce's cables sometimes for Back, Chest, Shoulders, and arms. I don't do many chest expander exercises. I can't remember the name of one chest expander exercise I like. You hold Your arms straight out in front chest height. Then You pull the bands where Your arms are like an airplane, shoulder height. Hits the back of the shoulders.

That exercise is called a Front Chest Pull. It's a classic basic chest expander exercise, and I believe it is also one of the competitive pulls in the sport of Strandpulling.

[Michael]

Mar 4, 2019 23:08:14 GMT Deuce Gunner said:

Mar 4, 2019 23:02:51 GMT Michael said:

Justregularguy, Good job! I like cycling my volume. I do periods of high volume and low volume. Fred Hutch mentioned this years ago and I've always liked it. I do some exercises with Bruce's cables sometimes for Back, Chest, Shoulders, and arms. I don't do many chest expander exercises. I can't remember the name of one chest expander exercise I like. You hold Your arms straight out in front chest height. Then You pull the bands where Your arms are like an airplane, shoulder height. Hits the back of the shoulders.

That exercise is called a Front Chest Pull. It's a classic basic chest expander exercise, and I believe it is also one of the competitive pulls in the sport of Strandpulling.

Thank You, sir! I forgot the name.

[macky]

When I was pulling the springs and Hook bands some years ago, I used to like what I called the Big Six.

Front chest pull

Overhead pull down

Lateral raise

Front/back press

Curl

True Archers Pull. That's a pull with short cables with one arm out ('holding the bow') and the other arm pulling as far as the far shoulder or neck. You can do some massive pull-weights with it. The old archers with their long bows used bows that were in excess of 140lbs drawn. Skeletons of archers dredged up from the Mary Rose had noticeable deformities such as larger left arms and bone spurs on the drawing fingers.

The Hook lends itself to TAP's. You can load the handles with heaps of short loops and they won't be overstretched because the average length between your hands with TAP is only about 3 feet. Or you can just use one handle for the "bow" and pull directly on the loops with your fingers. They will still not be overstretched.

[justregularguy]

Mar 5, 2019 4:46:39 GMT macky said:

When I was pulling the springs and Hook bands some years ago, I used to like what I called the Big Six.

Front chest pull

Overhead pull down

Lateral raise

Front/back press

Curl

True Archers Pull. That's a pull with short cables with one arm out ('holding the bow') and the other arm pulling as far as the far shoulder or neck. You can do some massive pull-weights with it. The old archers with their long bows used bows that were in excess of 140lbs drawn. Skeletons of archers dredged up from the Mary Rose had noticeable deformities such as larger left arms and bone spurs on the drawing fingers.

The Hook lends itself to TAP's. You can load the handles with heaps of short loops and they won't be overstretched because the average length between your hands with TAP is only about 3 feet. Or you can just use one handle for the "bow" and pull directly on the loops with your fingers. They will still not be overstretched.

The archers pull is a very interesting exercise. It must be at least a thousand years old. There seem to be two versions of it though. One is basically a one arm row where you hold one handle in front of you and do a rowing motion with the other. The other version looks completely different, one arm is extented to the side at shoulder height in static position and the remaining handle gets dragged to your other shoulder, then you do a tricep extension and you end up in the same end position as the front chest pull. I wonder which version is the real archers pull?

What do you think is the main difference between front and backpress? Does the front press involve the shoulder more?

[justregularguy]

Sweeet! That's what I'm gonna do. I'll remove one hook and pull the cables directly. I wonder how the archers pull differs to regular rowing. I imagine there's more traps and less lats involved?

[macky]

Mar 5, 2019 18:37:39 GMT justregularguy said:

Sweeet! That's what I'm gonna do. I'll remove one hook and pull the cables directly. I wonder how the archers pull differs to regular rowing. I imagine there's more traps and less lats involved?

The archers pull as it is commonly known (for quite a while now) is no more than a half triceps extension with reverse grip.  How it got that name I don't know. 

That's why I call the proper archers pull a TAP (True Archers Pull).

It will differ a lot from regular rowing because of the extended arm, for a start. Also, the working arm pulls around the back more than a regular row. 

No reason not to train both. 

[fredhutch]

There is a guy in the UK named Russell Wilks who is very big on cables, and isometrics too. His youtube channel is "Muscle Voodoo". For some reason when I google this it does not find him, if you have the same problem, look on youtube for videos about the "wringer" forearm exerciser, one that pops up is Russell's, you can then go through the link to his homepage. He has some great cable and iso ideas, I especially like his "standing oblique twist" with a cable set, it works the whole midsection, and really lights up my lower back when I twist as far as I can. Russell also has a bunch of kindle books, most of them are about how to start your own business but he has one book on weight gaining and one that was just released on isos. I will probably buy the iso kindle book soon, it's only ten bucks, the only reason I haven't bought it yet is I find the kindle a pain in the rear to use.

Jon Bruney in his book "The Neuro Grip Challenge" (from Dragon Door) has a unique approach to cables, he uses his neuro grip handles (functionally the same as the warrior power T's) as cable handles, he loops the elastic around the "strut" of the handles and then does cable exercises. When I first saw this I thought it was a bit gimmicky, but when I tried it I changed my mind. You have to maintain a really tight grip on the handles to do this, this not only works the forearms strongly, it also makes the target muscles fire harder, in my experience. For example, doing a front chest pull this way, my rear delts and upper back really light up. Definitely worth experimenting with.

[Mr Average]

Mar 6, 2019 17:42:47 GMT fredhutch said:

There is a guy in the UK named Russell Wilks who is very big on cables, and isometrics too. His youtube channel is "Muscle Voodoo". For some reason when I google this it does not find him, if you have the same problem, look on youtube for videos about the "wringer" forearm exerciser, one that pops up is Russell's, you can then go through the link to his homepage. He has some great cable and iso ideas, I especially like his "standing oblique twist" with a cable set, it works the whole midsection, and really lights up my lower back when I twist as far as I can. Russell also has a bunch of kindle books, most of them are about how to start your own business but he has one book on weight gaining and one that was just released on isos. I will probably buy the iso kindle book soon, it's only ten bucks, the only reason I haven't bought it yet is I find the kindle a pain in the rear to use.

Jon Bruney in his book "The Neuro Grip Challenge" (from Dragon Door) has a unique approach to cables, he uses his neuro grip handles (functionally the same as the warrior power T's) as cable handles, he loops the elastic around the "strut" of the handles and then does cable exercises. When I first saw this I thought it was a bit gimmicky, but when I tried it I changed my mind. You have to maintain a really tight grip on the handles to do this, this not only works the forearms strongly, it also makes the target muscles fire harder, in my experience. For example, doing a front chest pull this way, my rear delts and upper back really light up. Definitely worth experimenting with.

Russell Wilks

[justregularguy]

March 25, 2019

[justregularguy]

I asked Bruce earlier if the resistance of the loops drops dramatically if used daily. He told me the resistance will barely go down, not significantly. Guess I got just stronger! I'm now repping loops that would be max effort 3 months ago.